Okay, thanks. I think this, as you put it, is manipulation of reality
for/or others?
I don't quite understand your question. I'll respond to what I think
you might be asking, but I could be misinterpreting.
Reality is what happens. There is no such thing as "your reality" or
"my reality". We don't own reality. What happens is what happens.
There is a difference between your *experience* of reality and mine,
however. That's because experience is subjective, filtered through
different nervous systems that are equipped and trained in different
ways. These nervous systems are limited in what they can perceive as
well. Real events occur of which you or I have no experience
whatsoever. There is a connection between reality and experience but
it is not a strictly one-to-one correspondence and it is not
inerrant. Similarly, there are sometimes vast differences in how we
interpret our experience, in what our experience *means* to us, even
when the experiences themselves may be quite similar in many ways. If
we are clever and careful and courageous and persistent, we can use
our interpretation of our experience to act in ways that will
intentionally manipulate reality in many different ways. This is
magick.
Which could only be done if they allow it (even subconsciously).
Here again, you're speaking of your experience and interpretation as
if it were reality. We do not "allow" reality because reality does
not ask our permission. What happens is what happens. What we can and
do exert control over is how we perceive and interpret events in our
experience.
I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea of creating our own
reality, if we do it from a place of love (good energy) and not doing harm
to anyone in the process. Allowing it to be.
If there is anything bad that happens, your belief that you control
reality makes it all your fault. So while it's all well and good to
talk about how we make nice things with our nice thoughts, we also
make all the most horrendous crimes and terrible sufferings that
afflict every living thing, despite all our attempts not to. Why does
this happen? It's because reality is not under our control. Our
interpretations of our experiences and (to a somewhat lesser degree)
our perception of our experiences *are* under our control. So we can
say, yes, there is suffering in the world. It's really there. But
that doesn't mean we can't learn how to transcend suffering and be
compassionate, blissful individuals, because the quality of what we
experience and how we interpret it are up to us and are not entirely
dictated by forces outside ourselves.
I do think there is confusion because of the different topic groups his
has been going to, but also it brings new energy and people (and
discussions, or possible ones) to other groups. Our TRC-M group had just
about died out. I guess because of too many seeing "trolls" and trying to
drive them away (or symbollically kill them) and not being able to. Being an
unmoderated and uncontrolled newsgroup some would try and do this
personally. No moderator to complain to and get it how they felt they wanted
it.
Alt.magick has always been unmoderated and deliberately so. It used
to work better because the signal-to-noise ratio was much greater as
thoughtful people were attracted to the conversations. However, as
Usenet shrinks and Web-based forums expand, the majority of thoughtful
people are moving elsewhere and this bastion of frontier cyberspace is
fading away. Eventually Usenet newsgroups will be nothing but curios,
like Wild West museums. Time marches on.
Im sure in the context of "magick" there are variables, and different
beliefs and practices of it.
Oh yes. As many as there are magicians, I figure.
Fighting against it isn't really a good way.
Oh, I don't know... One good way to test the durability of a viewpoint
is to crash it against other viewpoints and see which break and which
don't. It's kind of a Darwinian "survival of ther fittest" thing.
How I would see it would be
using magick for one's own protection, and not trying to track down, find
out, and stop anyone else from doing what they believe in and feel is right.
But that's not what's going on here. No one is trying to stop anybody
from saying or doing anything they like. We're just arguing the
strengths and weaknesses of our various theories. People often take
this personally and that leads to some pretty amusing repartee, but
the real deal is how well the theories can withstand a challenge to
their accuracy.
And, again, what good does it do to argue about something on a discussion
group?
It prompts one to think. To question. To introspect. To
communicate. All healthy exercise for an active mind.
Does the entire world have to agree with and think like one
person, and if so, which one person would be totally right?
No one has to be right for someone to be wrong. Every theory has its
strengths and its weaknesses. None of them are complete. When you
crash your theory into a bunch of other theories, the resulting cracks
and dents tell you where your theory's structure is weakest and where
your ideas need further modification in order to align more closely
with the world as it is.
Post by TomThe registering of doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that it
saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods;
According to who?
According to Francis Bacon, of course. He wrote it.
When two people think different things, which one gets
to be "right"?
Neither. As I say, one need not have the correct answer in order to
realize that one's current answer is wrong.
Maybe one person can learn something and change their mind from another,
but it still would be their choice.
Sure. Like I say, we have control over how we perceive and interpret
our experience. The trick is to have a mind that is open to new ideas
but not so open that your brain falls out.